I'M BACK, AND AN ODD FRIENDSHIP

This is 2nd Family's horse, Artax, meeting the 'new neighbor'.  I watched this for about thirty minutes the last time I was out there.  This calf is on one side of the fence, the neighbor's, and then Artax is in 2nd Family's back pasture.

The calf discovered the horse, and they followed each other up and down the fence line.  They would be nose to nose, then they would nudge each other.  It was so adorable.

A horse and a cow, best friends

Wherever Artax grazed, the cow followed along.  I tried to snap some more pictures, but then I was busted!  "Hey, what are you taking pictures of?"

Thank you all for the so very kind words about the passing of my Grandfather.  It's comforting to hear such nice thoughts from all of you.

I'm also back to normal.  Cold is almost over, well, my physical cold, the actual outside cold weather is still here and boy is it cold, brrrr.  I'm back amongst the blogging world, so I wanted to start back with something sweet that I took pictures of the last sunny day at the farm.

Contest drawing will finally happen tonight!

I'VE LOST MY GRANDFATHER

 Grandpa B 1917-2013

I lost my Grandfather yesterday.

Got the call at about 3:30am (boy, nothing good ever comes from the phone ringing that early in the morning does it?).

He had recently been diagnosed with pneumonia and was having difficulty swallowing. He was taken to the hospital in Oklahoma City and while he rallied for a couple of days, in the end, he slowly faded from us and died peacefully in his sleep.  I was not able to be there because of the Winter ice storm that is gripping Texas/Oklahoma, but I was able to speak to him briefly and we were able to say our goodbyes.  He told me I was the best Grandson he could have ever hoped for.  And he told me he loved 2nd Man.

Forward thinking for a 96 year old.

He was my garden guru growing up and one of these days, I'm going to try to find some of the photos of his amazing gardens and my adventures growing up each summer with them and share.  One thing for sure, I know that next Spring, I'll have an extra garden helper with me.

He was the last...I've now lost both parents and both sets of Grandparents.  I'm an only child, no siblings and thus no nieces or nephews, so it's an odd feeling in a way, sort of a lonely feeling, but hey, life goes onward and upward, right?

We love you Grandpa!

FUNNY FELINE FRIDAY

$#%@ CATS!

 

Oh to be a cat (in this house especially, LOL) and stay in bed all day long on a cold, wet, dreary day.  Sigh.

This is Sydney and Brisbane, curled up one morning as we left for work.  When one has pets, cats or dogs, I guess making the bed becomes an exercise in futility at some point?

THE PASSING OF AN INSPIRATION

1918-2013

Goodbye Mr. Mandela

you will be missed...

I HATE THIS FEELING

  Taking a couple of days off to get better.  Had to go back to work this week and while I was starting to feel a bit better, being at work these last few days has taken its toll.  It's just a cold but the nagging cough is driving me crazy.  Yes, the socks/vick's thing works great, but alas, only at night while I'm sleeping, can't do it at work, ha.  Any other home remedies are always welcome.  I'll catch up to your comments and reply soon, and we'll have the drawing for the book giveaway!  Don't give up on us!

TREE OF THANKS

On Thanksgiving, we went to 2nd Man's extended family for dinner.  When we got to their beautiful home, the hostess, "A", had this fun idea.  She put up this sign in a frame on a table.  It says "Welcome! Tell us what you are thankful for on a leaf and hang it on our tree."

She had these leaves cut out and put in a can with some pens.  The leaves were different colors and there were also some pre-cut pieces of twine.  Then when people were done writing on their leaves, they hung them on the tree, as seen below.  

Tree of Thanks

Then after we ate dinner and dessert, she read all the leaves on the tree.  Lots of laughs (kids being thankful for Wii's and tablets) and lots of warm thoughts of family and love.  Definitely something memorable and we're thinking of doing something similar, but on a permanent basis, at the farm.

VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY, FREEDOM FROM WANT

Norman Rockwell Freedom From Want vintage poster

Love this Norman Rockwell painting that was used during the war effort.  "Ours...to Fight For, Freedom From Want".  It was part of a series of works based on the "Four Freedoms" that President Roosevelt spoke about in the months leading up to our involvement in the war.

Perfect for Thanksgiving, and always.  Don't we all strive to have freedom from want?  I believe the more self sufficient we become, the less we want.

It's the last day of our long weekend, and I'm still sick.  It was a complete wasted of a good four days off, sigh.  I'm feeling a bit better.  Been doing the Vick's with socks and it works great.  I was out of it for one day, but got some yesterday and used it all day. It really works.  Weirdest thing.

It's finally warming up a bit here but another blast is coming later in the week.  We'll see how it turns out.

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER THE BOOK GIVEAWAY.
IT ENDS TONIGHT!

CLICK HERE TO ENTER.

HAPPY SATURDAY UPDATE

Vintage Thanksgiving postcard

We just love these old postcards.  They seem to reflect a stylized image of a simpler time, don't they?

Today we're off to the farm to check on things and make sure everything is OK.  It's still cold and damp, but we'll see what we can get done.  

As you might have read on yesterdays post, I'm sick.  Did great at Thanksgiving we had a lovely dinner with 2nd Man's family, but then Thursday night I started feeling funny and then Friday I woke up sick as a dog. I've coughed so much my stomach muscles hurt.  Sigh.  Above was supposed to be today's plans, and it may still be, just depends on how I feel.  Feeling a little better today (sleeping from 8pm last night until 10am this morning might have had something to do with that), so we'll see how the rest of the day progresses.

Have a great day whatever you are doing!

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER THE BOOK GIVEAWAY.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER.

HAPPY FRIDAY UPDATE

Vintage Thanksgiving postcard image, "Peace and Prosperity"

Hope your "Black Friday" is going well, whatever you are doing.

Visiting with family, shopping, eating leftovers, Fall cleaning, watching sports, or just resting.  Our plans for today are for some Fall cleaning, including tackling one of the storage units we have that is full of stuff from my parents.  I am hoping to find some cool stuff we can use at the farm, we'll see how it goes.

Oh and we might check on some of those leftovers.

UPDATE:

I'm getting sick!  Arrgh!  The best laid plans sometimes don't work out.

Been home in town in bed ALL day.  Taking lots of Vitamin C and Zinc, drinking orange juice, and warming up some tea with honey.  Sigh.

Enjoy your day!

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER THE BOOK GIVEAWAY.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL

Vintage Thanksgiving postcard

It's still cold, we had our first freeze, a low in the upper 20's last night, but that somehow seems appropriate for this time of year.

2nd Man and I would like to wish all of you a wonderful and, as the card above states, a joyful Thanksgiving.  We appreciate each of you and we are thankful to consider all of you our friends, friends we just haven't met in person!

We're going to take a few days off from the blog and just enjoy the long weekend.  It's a bit cold but we're going to see what we can get done.

We love these old postcard images.  I used to have a large collection of old postcards but sadly, I lost them in a break in at an apartment once upon a time.  Now I just have to enjoy seeing them online.  Over the next few days, I've got some posts ready with quick updates and I'll share some Thanksgiving themed postcard images that I found online.

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER THE BOOK GIVEAWAY.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER.

COMPOST TOOLS

What in the heck are these?

Closeup of compost turner and how it works

No, they are not the latest in zombie killing tools from an upcoming episode of The Walking Dead TV show.  No, they are a pair of "Compost Turners" that I bought when we got our bins last month.  They were out at the time and I went ahead and bought them and just picked them up the other day.

Here is how they work:

Compost Turner by Orbis

You push it down into the compost pile, and as it goes in, the hinged end closes so it travels downward into the compost.  Then when you pull up on it, the hinged head opens up and creates resistance so that it mixes the compost, or turns it, as you pull up.  You simply do this several times up and down.  We bought two because we figured we might spend half our time walking back and forth to each compost bin as we forget the turner...plus if one fails, we'll at least have a backup.

Compost Turners at Amazon

These are made by the same company that helped sponsor the bin and rain barrel sale with the city, But at the link above, you can see that several different types are sold via Amazon.  You never know, it could be a neat gift for someone you know that has a compost bin.

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER THE BOOK GIVEAWAY.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER.

FRUIT TREE BARK DAMAGE UPDATE

A couple of weeks back, I blogged HERE about something eating/scratching/chewing on some of our fruit trees.  Well, our recent wet weather was a bit of a blessing, because it allowed me to find THESE:

Deer tracks

These are, I believe from my research anyway, deer tracks.  I didn't have anything to put down for scale but they were smallish, so I'm guessing, just as several of you commented about, that young deer rubbing on the trees, were the culprits.  I have seen some rabbits around too, so it could even be some sort of combination of the two.

Whatever the creature is/was, I came up with this solution.  Hopefully it's a bit better than the strong smelling basil.

Fruit trees with foam pipe protectors

These are the foam pipe protectors used in Winter to cover pipes to keep them from freezing.  Since they're already slit on one side, I just wrapped them around the trunks. They have been keeping them safe for the last week until I can get some chicken wire fencing around them.

Foam pipe protector around tree trunk

I came up with this idea while cleaning out some stuff and found them.  They aren't tight around the tree so they do breathe, but just in case, I decided to Google it.  I found others who have done the same with no problems.
If anyone has any other suggestions, please post below!

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY.
CLICK HERE.

BOOK GIVEAWAY

It's the holiday season and time for giving, so we're going to have a giveaway!

A couple of weeks back, I blogged HERE about starting our composting adventure for the farm.  I found this book the other day at lunch and since it's geared toward beginners, I bought two so that we could give one away.

This is the GREEN GUIDES edition of COMPOST by Rachel Strauss.   It covers 'how to use', 'how to make', 'everyday tips', 'why we should compost', 'what you can and can't put on your heap', 'different types of bins', and more.
It's 256 pages long and full of information.

So who wants to join us on a composting adventure?

As always, and for those new to the blog, the rules are as follows:

You need to be a "friend of the farm" (follower) and then leave a comment here on this thread letting me know that you want to be entered, because after all, it might be a book you already have.

The contest will run until midnight at the the end of the month (next Saturday night at midnight) at which time I'll randomly pick a winner and then you can email me your address at that time.

The contest is open to everyone, even those in other countries.

One entry per person.

Thanks and good luck!

CONTEST IS OVER, BECAUSE WE'VE BEEN SICK, THE DRAWING WILL BE HELD LATER IN THE WEEK, WINNER ANNOUNCED THEN.

VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY, FUEL IS SCARCE

Vintage Plan For Winter Now poster, image courtesy of NY Public Library

Well, with my post yesterday, and the cold weather encompassing much of the U.S., this one seems appropriate today.  It's a poster from WWII and urged people to conserve fuel that was needed for the war effort by winterizing their homes, and checking their heating systems.

Wise words this Winter 2013 as well!

Stay warm!

THE WEATHER IS COLD AND WET

For the first time in months, we aren't going to the farm at least one day this weekend.  It's cold, rainy and wet.

There is certainly nothing I could do outside and inside it would be cold as well.  You see, we don't have heat in the farmhouse.  We have had a couple of small heaters we've used a few times, but it really wasn't until this year that the house was fully livable inside (just got hot water last Spring).  So we had air conditioning via window units and that got us through the heat.

Now the cold has arrived and therein lies the quandary.

What type of space heater to get?

I know there are all types, propane, wood, gas, and of course electric.  In reality, at this point in the farm progress, we can't do anything permanent like central heat or a piped gas system.  Can't really do anything that requires any sort of venting out the wall or roof (need a new roof first).  So that really limits us to electric heat or something that doesn't have to be vented outside.

In electric, there are the oil filled radiator types, quartz, ceramic, etc.

Does anyone have suggestions and/or personal experience with these?

We were thinking of one of the oil filled radiator types for use in the small bathroom, but we need others that will heat the bedroom well, and of course a couple more for the kitchen and living area.  Something that will just keep the rooms at a warmer temperature?  

The house is very well insulated and the windows are newer and so even when it's pretty cold outside, it's surprisingly not as cold inside.  It's been in the 30's outside and the house was hovering in the 50's with zero supplemental heat.  That's not so bad.  The rooms are also small so they could be warmed up individually but on the flip side, because of the house being chopped up into smaller rooms, we'll need supplemental heat in each room.

Also, any advice on tricks to keep the heat in and the cold out once we get something?  A dear friend in Wisconsin mentioned covering the windows with plastic to get a good seal on them and insulate from the cold coming through the glass?  But I wasn't sure how to go about that.  We also put the heavy fabric 'doors' on each room last Spring so we can keep the warmth in or conversely, keep the cold out of whatever room we are or aren't using.

Hope you are warm wherever you are!